Skip to content
worldfires
US · United States ·

23 And Dd Fire, April 2022 Meade, Beaver

Out · last detection 7 Apr 2022, 20:26 UTC

The fire started on 7 April 2022 in Meade, United States, and satellites saw it burning for 1 day. United States agencies (MTBS / NIFC) mapped an official burnt perimeter of 3,595 hectares, spread across 2 counties.

It is the 16th largest in Kansas since 2016 (of 84 with a page). Number 129 in United States in 2022, of 493.

Burnt area
3,595ha
official perimeter (MTBS / NIFC)
Duration
≈ 1day
7 Apr 2022 – 7 Apr 2022
Counties hit
2
counties
Started on
7 Apr
2022
Heat detections
86
in a single hotspot: 58 MW
Danger at start
52
Extreme · FWI index
Average daily power
1.4GW
detected power per day, on average

Where it burned

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 7 Apr7 Apr

How it evolved, day by day

7 Apr 2022 · 1,357 MW · 86

Fire radiative power detected each day, in megawatts, and number of hotspots. The magenta bar marks the peak day.

The weather it burned in

16°high
83km/h · peak gust
14%lowest humidity

It had gone 5 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

No earlier perimeters overlap this fire since 2016, when the satellite record begins.

How big is it?

10 km
It burned the equivalent of 2.3% of the area of London (36 km² against 1,583 km²).

London boundary: geoBoundaries · Office for National Statistics (Open Government Licence v3.0).

This compares size, not location: both shapes are at the same scale, north up, centred on each other.

What happened to each county

  1. Meade where it started
    2,990 ha reached on 7 Apr
    1.2 %
  2. 604 ha reached on 7 Apr
    0.1 %

Burnt area inside each county, from crossing the official perimeter with administrative boundaries. The distance runs from the point marking the centre of each area to the nearest fire: staying a kilometre away does not mean it reached the houses.

People and buildings inside the perimeter

GHSL 2020
Built-up area0.24 ha
Residents< 20

Inside the perimeter there were about 0.24 hectares of built-up land and almost nobody lived there (GHSL 2020, satellite-based estimate).

This is an estimate on 100 m cells, made from satellite imagery and census data: it does not mean that homes burned or that anyone was harmed. The perimeter also contains land that never burned.

Source: Global Human Settlement Layer (GHS-BUILT-S and GHS-POP R2023A), European Commission Joint Research Centre (JRC), © European Union, CC BY 4.0. Sum inside the perimeter computed by WorldFires. human-settlement.emergency.copernicus.eu

The weather day by day

ECMWF ERA5 reanalysis at the fire location, the standard reference for past weather, and the Canadian Fire Weather Index (the same system Copernicus uses), computed by WorldFires from that data. Days after the fire run until the first rain.

Open-Meteo.com (CC BY 4.0) · Copernicus Climate Change Service (ERA5)

Started with Strong wind: 27 % of the area in United States Very dry air: 40 % of the area in United States

Day High Min. humidity Peak gust Rain Danger (FWI)
7 Apr 15.5 °C 14 % 83 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 52
8 Apr after 17.0 °C 14 % 54 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
9 Apr after 30.1 °C 10 % 47 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
10 Apr after 20.7 °C 11 % 51 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
11 Apr after 21.3 °C 18 % 53 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 38
12 Apr after 31.5 °C 14 % 81 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 62
13 Apr after 12.8 °C 22 % 57 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
14 Apr after 20.1 °C 16 % 50 km/h 0.0 mm High 38
15 Apr after 25.2 °C 16 % 47 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
16 Apr after 13.6 °C 29 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
17 Apr after 22.1 °C 26 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm High 24

Its twins: fires that started in the same weather

It started with an FWI of 52.0, a minimum humidity of 14% and 5 days without rain. Fires in the area that started in weather like this since 2016: 15.

FWI at the start 52.0
Minimum humidity 14 %
Days without rain 5
this fire chosen twins rest of the area
Almost identicalSimilar

Outlines of the closest twins

Andrew Lane Fire, February 2026
2,759 ha 2 days FWI 53.2 Min. humidity 15 % 24 km away, in 2026

First rain (1 mm or more) after it ended: none in the following ten days.

What happened to them

2 days
median duration
2,730 ha
median area
67 %
went past 1,000 ha
1.8 mm
rain at the end (median; 9 of 15 had it)

It burned an area similar to its twins (3,595 ha against a median of 2,730 ha) and lasted 1 day, against 2 days.

In 6 of 15, not even 1 mm fell in the ten days after the end: they went out without rain. In the rest, the first rainy day brought a median of 1.8 mm.

This is a bank of analogues: it shows what usually happens, not what will happen. With fewer than 15 twins we give no figures. How we calculate it

How it ended

—first rain
—no rain in ten days
83km/h · max. gust

It was considered over on 7 Apr, and not even 1 mm fell in the following ten days: it went out without rain. Twins with rain when they ended: 9 of 15, with a median of 1.8 mm.

Weather on this page: Open-Meteo.com (CC BY 4.0) · Copernicus Climate Change Service (ERA5)

How a twin is chosen

  • Same area: fires that have already ended, less than 250 km from this one, since 2016.
  • Same start: we compare the FWI on the first day, the minimum humidity that day and the run of days without rain before it. The slider sets how much they may differ.
  • Only pages with final weather data (ERA5 reanalysis) calculated in the same way as this fire’s; agricultural and grass burns and pages with data under review are left out.
  • Fires burning at the same time as this one (a week before or after) are left out: they share the same spell of weather and do not count as a precedent.
  • They are sorted by similarity, and the outlines of the first five are drawn.

How we calculate it

Before and after, from space

Drag the line to compare the same ground before the fire and after it.

Before · 31 Mar 2022
After · 14 Apr 2022

If the day is cloudy, change the date: each satellite passes once a day. In false colour the burnt ground looks brown or red.

Detections table · 86Every satellite heat detection, one by one, with time, satellite, power and coordinates.
⬇ Download CSV Times in UTC. Each detection is a 375 m pixel: a large fire yields hundreds per pass.
Date and timeSatelliteFRP (MW)LatLon

Other fires nearby

All fires in United States

Frequently asked questions

How long did the 23 And Dd Fire last?
The official perimeter only gives the start date (7 April 2022). The end comes from the heat detections inside the perimeter: it burned until 7 April 2022 (1 day from 7 April 2022), the last day with detections before more than 10 days in a row without any, so it is approximate.
How much area did it burn?
The official perimeter published by United States agencies (MTBS / NIFC) is 3,595 hectares (36.0 km²). Other tallies, such as daily incident reports, may give slightly different figures.
Which counties burned?
The fire entered 2 counties: Meade (2,990 ha, 1.2 %); Beaver (604 ha, 0.1 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 15.5 °C, humidity dropped to 14 % and gusts hit 83 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 52, class Extreme.
Where does this data come from?
From the official burnt perimeter of United States agencies (MTBS / NIFC, public domain), NASA FIRMS VIIRS hotspots and the administrative boundaries of United States. It is not an official report.
How did the fires that started in similar weather in this area end?
Fires less than 250 km away that started since 2016 with a similar FWI, humidity and dry spell: 15. Their median duration was 2 days and their median area 2,730 ha; 67 % went past 1,000 ha. In 6 of 15, not even 1 mm fell in the ten days after the end: they went out without rain. In the rest, the first rainy day brought a median of 1.8 mm.

Where to verify it

A satellite detection is not an official report. Final figures and the fire’s status are published by each country’s emergency service.

Emergency number: 911 · Emergency number and official warnings

Satellite cross-check

History of this page Changes in area, dates, name, official record or merged pages, compared every night since 24 October 2026.

Does something look wrong on this page?

This page is built from satellite data and official records, and it sometimes gets things wrong: the wrong dates, the wrong town, two fires merged into one, or something that was not a wildfire at all. If you know this fire first-hand (you live nearby, saw it, fought it or reported on it), tell us what really happened and we will check it.

Report an error
What do you think is wrong?

We will only use your email to reply about this report. Privacy. This is not an emergency service: if there is a fire now, call 911.

How we know this
  • Perimeter: MTBS (US Geological Survey and US Forest Service), official.
  • The official perimeter has no end date: the end is the last day with VIIRS detections inside the perimeter before a gap of more than 10 days (150 days at most), so it is approximate. 86 Suomi-NPP VIIRS detections on those dates.
  • We have not matched this page with any official record.
  • Weather: Copernicus ERA5 reanalysis at the fire location, in cells of about 25 km.
  • Built-up area and population come from the JRC Global Human Settlement Layer (epoch 2020, 100 m cells), summed inside the perimeter: an estimate of what was there, not a damage count.

How we build fire pages: methodology

Where this data comes from

The perimeter is official and in the public domain. For past years it comes from MTBS (Monitoring Trends in Burn Severity), run by the U.S. Geological Survey and the USDA Forest Service, which map it on Landsat and Sentinel-2 imagery. For the current and last year it comes from WFIGS at the National Interagency Fire Center (NIFC): incident perimeters mapped by fire crews, aircraft and imagery. Heat detections come from the VIIRS sensors aboard Suomi-NPP and NOAA-20, distributed by NASA FIRMS at 375 m resolution. County boundaries come from geoBoundaries ADM2 (Public Domain). The area per county is computed by WorldFires by crossing the perimeter with those boundaries, so it may differ slightly from official figures.